


In the Dreaming Hours

by Itsallfine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Half-asleep Cuddling, Love Confessions, M/M, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 20:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itsallfine/pseuds/Itsallfine
Summary: John has always had hazy memories of things that happen during the deepest hours of sleep. When he starts having a recurring dream of Sherlock in his bed at night, though, the lines between dream and reality begin to blur.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1butterfly_grl1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1butterfly_grl1/gifts).



> This was written as a commission for butterflygrl62, who requested an M-rated bed-sharing-for-a -case fic with UST. I hope you like it! Thank you for giving me the excuse to try my hand at writing one of my absolute favorite tropes. <3
> 
> Many thanks to notjustmom and scc9724 for the super fast turn-around beta!

**Lullaby**

Lay your sleeping head, my love,   
Human on my faithless arm;   
Time and fevers burn away   
Individual beauty from   
Thoughtful children, and the grave   
Proves the child ephemeral:   
But in my arms till break of day   
Let the living creature lie,   
Mortal, guilty, but to me   
The entirely beautiful.   
  
[...]  
  
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:   
Let the winds of dawn that blow   
Softly round your dreaming head   
Such a day of welcome show   
Eye and knocking heart may bless,   
Find the mortal world enough;   
Noons of dryness find you fed   
By the involuntary powers,   
Nights of insult let you pass   
Watched by every human love.

 - _W. H. Auden (1907–1973)_

 

* * *

 

John had always had hazy memories of things that happened during the deepest hours of sleep. 

As a child, his mum would wake him up to take doses of medicine when he was sick and he’d have only the most vague recollection of it the next morning, unsure it had even happened. He would wake up in Harry’s bed some mornings without remembering the choice to get up and seek comfort after a nightmare. It had served him well in uni, where his roommate’s late-night returns and furtive liaisons took place firmly in the realm of dream space. 

There were times, though, where John desperately wished that those memories wouldn’t slip so easily through his fingers. Sometimes, truthfully, it was convenient to remain oblivious to reality.

Sometimes, John was desperate to claim it.  


 

* * *

 

Even without the post-case exhaustion, the atmosphere of the Castle Farmhouse Inn would have been enough to wrap John in warmth and draw him into blessed oblivion. The inn was softly lit and cozy, aged and quaint with rustic, restful charm. Gentle rain pattered against the covered window of their room, and the down-soft duvet and pillows swallowed John in a hazy world of drifting consciousness; quiet, dream-like, slipping shadows and the soft, rhythmic exhalations of the world’s only consulting detective. 

Their one shared bed in the one available room at the inn was large enough that a vast, empty stretch of space separated their sleep-warm bodies, but the feel of Sherlock’s presence in the room, his frantic mind and body for once tamed and still, was a powerful soporific itself. 

John turned on his side, let his head sink into the pillow and fell down, down, down into sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

_ They meet in the strange, liminal space between waking and sleeping, where time is elusive and the edges of the world bleed away into the far distance, where the ocean and the night sky swirl together into light years of stars.   _

_ John’s eyes flutter half-open, and his first impression is of weight. Dark curls rest at the junction of shoulder and chest, heavy atop the exact spot where his other side is a ruined mess of scar tissue and bad memories. Warm breath tickles in slow, easy puffs, and one long arm stretches across his middle, from the dip of his waist on one side to the jut of his hipbone on the other, familiar and intimate and so very welcome and wanted.  _

_ John turns, gently, to curve around Sherlock’s lean, beautiful body, to draw him in closer and breathe in every good thing in the world. He slides one hand onto the small of Sherlock’s back (and that dip is tailor-made, a perfect fit, gorgeous under his fingers); runs his other hand over Sherlock’s sloping shoulder, up into hair soft as the down stuffing in their shared pillow. Sherlock rumbles in his sleep, almost a groan, and pushes his head back into John’s touch. John presses his lips to Sherlock’s forehead and leaves them there, tightening his arms around the most important and precious thing in his world. _

_ How nice of my dreams, John thought, to give me exactly what I need for once.  _

 

* * *

 

John woke to an empty bed at just shy of seven in the morning. Sherlock’s side was cold and practically unrumpled; no sign of the softly snoring man John had wished goodnight to six hours earlier. Had Sherlock even bothered to get more than an hour or two of sleep?

No matter. John stretched in his cocoon of duvet, feeling refreshed and… happy. For a man recently free from six-month long divorce proceedings and a gut punch of a paternity test, his mind and heart were remarkably, joyfully light. At peace with the world. 

He rolled out of bed, humming faintly as he went about his morning routine, luxuriating in the blistering hot shower and ridiculously soft towels. The inn was certainly a step up from their typical last-minute emergency accommodations, and though John was sure he’d look at their bank account and regret it later, it was hard to care when the stunningly good water pressure was pounding the ache out of his shoulder.

John dawdled for a bit, packing their things slowly while he waited for Sherlock to return. When he finally did, it was with two coffees and a selection of pastries from the bakery down the road, including several of John’s favorites. The glow he’d been tending in his chest all morning sparked, caught, and flared to life at the sight of Sherlock’s pale eyes alight with excitement. 

“Another case already waiting for us in London, and it’s a good one, John. Grab your coat! The train leaves at eight-twenty and if we miss it I’ll be forced to take drastic measures that you most certainly will not like,” he rambled all in one breath. John accepted the coffee shoved in his direction with one hand and shoved his other through the dangling other arm of his coat, then grabbed his bag and chased Sherlock down the stairs.

At the checkout desk, Sherlock paid the bill with exasperated patience as John watched him from the corner of his eye: bright, focused, practically vibrating with brilliant energy. John swallowed hard, his heart pounding in the base of his throat when Sherlock shifted closer, let his fingers bump against John’s, looked down at him and smiled faintly. 

The proximity was dizzying. 

Or maybe he just needed to eat one of those pastries. 

A moment later, Sherlock swept out the door in a dramatic swirl of coat and spicy cologne. And John, as always, followed right on his heels, looking forward to whatever Sherlock had in store for him that day.

 

* * *

 

The plan for the day, it turned out, involved fourteen hours of casework.

Sherlock relayed the details of the case on the train back to London as he conducted preliminary research on his phone. One problem barely wrapped up the night before, and Lestrade had delivered to them what appeared to be a solid seven, something rife with dirty business deals, hired guns, and a rather strange set of completely unremarkable stolen goods. Sherlock angled his phone toward John, sharing the list of missing items Lestrade had sent over, and John scooted closer until their legs were pressed together from knee to thigh and their shoes nudged at the heels. 

And it was fine. It was good. Sherlock shifted, his breathing… different, and he glanced at John from the corner of his eye. But he didn’t move away. 

It was fine. 

Sherlock led him out of the station at a jog two hours later, already half inside a taxi by the time John emerged from the crowd, and then they were off. NSY, then a bank in Stratford, a warehouse in Clapham, half their day whiled away at tube stops and in rocking train cars, far closer than usual and hyper aware and absolutely not talking about it. And as night fell and they gained ground on their suspect, John’s willpower eroded, his hands aching for every small contact with Sherlock’s arm, back, thigh, chest. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it; a remnant of a dream, perhaps, the lingering sense memory of closeness pushing his normally well-concealed feelings close to the surface. 

One glimpse of Sherlock’s flushed cheeks, and he couldn’t bring himself to be sorry. 

“I want it solved tonight,” Sherlock snapped at Lestrade, “and if your people could process a crime scene at anything greater than a snail’s pace, we could have caught him and been done by now.”

Lestrade held up his hands and retreated, sensing a full-on strop building, and went to marshall his officers. Sherlock, catching John’s expression, rolled his eyes and huffed. 

“What, would you rather I let it drag on, let them kill a few more people before we bring them in?”

“Not at all, you just normally live much more in the moment when you’re on a case. Today you seem… anxious to be done, or something,” John said, running a soothing hand over Sherlock’s forearm. “I just thought you might want to fend off the boredom for a bit longer.”

“No,” Sherlock said, without elaboration, but he didn’t move to hail them another cab until John’s hand fell away from his arm. Lestrade flagged them down before they could get in, though. 

“Just got off the phone with the unit in Camden,” he said. “Suspect returned to the scene of the second robbery to retrieve that note you found. They got him. Case closed.”

John winced, expecting a Sherlockian tantrum of epic proportions, but Sherlock simply nodded and climbed into the cab, giving him the address to Angelo’s instead of the next crime scene. Lestrade met John’s gaze with a wide-eyed stare, and John could only shrug. 

In the cab, he slid across the seat until their knees touched and put a hesitant hand on Sherlock’s leg. 

“Hey, you okay? You seem… off.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said, then turned to look out the window. As he did, though, his fingers nudged gently against John’s on his leg, not quite holding or tangling together, not covering, just… a faint contact. An acknowledgment. 

John left his hand there for the remainder of the ride. 

The familiarity of Angelo’s wrapped them in contentment, of good wine and hot food and feet nudging together under the table. The tangy burst of garlic on John’s tongue, though, was nothing compared to the sweet ache that pulled in his chest with every brush of Sherlock’s hands, the crackle of tension in the air between them. Back home, they settled together to watch a movie with a glass of scotch each, cool drips of condensation running down fingers, the couch cradling them together in its center, the two ends left vacant.

_ Am I reading this right? Is this happening? _

John went to bed that night with the lingering presence of Sherlock all along his right side, his attention still back downstairs where he’d reluctantly said goodnight with brief squeeze of Sherlock’s knee.

Not enough. Never enough.

 

* * *

 

_ John’s awareness drifts to the surface in stages. Vague perceptions first: warmth, safety, contentment, relief. A heavy arm around his waist. A long, lean body curved around him, forehead resting in the hollow between his shoulder blades, curls tickling the nape of his neck, hips aligned and legs tangled. The swell of ribs rhythmically expanding and contracting against his back. Deep shadows, only the faintest moonlight through the window washing the room in grayscale.  _

_ Soft, blurred. _

_ John stretches, turns, lets skin glide on skin in a long drag of electric sensation. Sherlock stirs to life, his large hands running down John’s body, drawing him in, and John slots a leg between his to bring their bodies into alignment, allow him closer, closer. He traces his nose along one sharp cheekbone, lets his lips follow, then down a sliding path of long exposed throat. He feels Sherlock’s rumbling groans beneath his mouth, tastes them like rich chocolate on his sleep-warm skin, lets them settle into his throat, his chest, his stomach and groin.  _

_ “Are you real?” John whispers into the dip of Sherlock’s collarbone.  _

_ “Sleep, John,” is his only answer.  _

_ John sleeps. _

 

* * *

 

John’s journey to consciousness was a tentative thing, a word on the tip of his tongue or silky strands slipping through his fingers. The morning light was dazzling even through his eyelids, and brighter still when he cracked his eyes open to see the room rendered in full morning-sharp detail. John turned his face into his pillow and brought the two ends up around his ears, anything to stave off the reality of another day. 

And with his nose in the folds of his pillow, he caught a faint scent. Not his wash powder. Not his shampoo. Not his own stale, sleepy smell. Something not normally there. 

_ He traced his nose along one sharp cheekbone, let his lips follow— _

John lifted his head and blinked away the last fog of sleep. Was that a dream or a memory? He sniffed the pillow again, feeling slightly ridiculous, but no—if the scent had ever been there, he’d gone nose-blind to it. He listened, instead, for the tell-tale sounds of Sherlock sawing at his violin, making messes in the kitchen, showering… but nothing. He could be sulking or sleeping, of course, or focused on his microscope, but the flat  _ felt _ empty. 

And it was. 

John padded through the flat in his pyjamas and bare feet, poked his head into the bathroom, Sherlock’s bedroom—nothing. Sherlock was gone, as was his coat. 

He didn’t come back all day. 

John stayed up as late as he could. Wrote a new blog post, cooked dinner and packed up leftovers for Sherlock, watched bad telly alone on the couch—waited until long after nightfall. 

When he finally went to bed, his eyes were heavy with exhaustion, his mind tumbling and spinning with troubled anxiety.

He closed his eyes and drifted off in fits and starts, wishing for pleasant dreams of strong arms and low silken words whispered in the night.

 

* * *

 

_ John shifts, frowns, turns, turns again—until a dip in the mattress and the play of long fingers on skin settle his restless body.  _

_ “Sherlock?” he murmurs, rolling over to push his face into the bare chest at his back. “Are you really here?” _

_ A non-committal hum resonates under his cheek, and John chuckles, stretches, weaves their legs together and curls inward. A glowing tension builds between them as their limbs find their perfect fit, wrapped over, around, together, entwined. The hold is comforting, but it’s also more; it’s faster breaths and bare skin and a sweet, slow drive that makes John hot and tense and sensitive in all the spots where Sherlock’s hands can reach—and some where he can’t.  _

_ With his lips pressed to the hollow of Sherlock’s throat, John whispers: “I missed you today.” _

_ And under his lips, he feels the answer come, though not an answer at all.  _

_ “You terrify me, John.” _

_ John drags his mouth over every freckle on the way to Sherlock’s jaw line, the rasp of stubble prickling at his wandering lips. He kisses Sherlock once on one cheek, then again on the other, but when he drifts down to Sherlock’s mouth, he meets cheek again instead. Dodged away. John frowns, traces a hand up Sherlock’s long flank from hip to heart.  _

_ Beat. Beat. Beat. _

_ “Am I dreaming?” _

_ Sherlock leans back in and brushes their noses together, lips barely an inch away. The air between them hangs thick with longing. _

_ “Sleep, John.” _

_ John sleeps. _

 

* * *

 

John woke at six in the morning to a level of frustration he hadn’t felt since his teenage years. Easily dealt with, crying out into a pillow that still smelled of Sherlock’s shampoo, but it solidified his certainty. 

Sherlock had been in his bed the night before. 

It was real. All of it. 

John covered his face with his hands, felt the heat rush to his cheeks and laid there, absorbing the implications. In his “dreams” he’d been completely uninhibited, holding Sherlock close, relishing the feel of his skin, putting his mouth all over his face, throat, shoulders, getting hard against him and trying for a kiss—a kiss he’d been denied. 

Why?

Because he hadn’t been fully conscious? If their positions were reversed, he knew he wouldn’t want his first kiss with Sherlock to be one Sherlock might not even remember. Felt too much like taking advantage. But oh, he’d reciprocated in other ways. The Sherlock in his dreams—in his bed, rather—was sensual and affectionate, took pleasure in John’s hands and mouth on him, even though things stayed relatively innocent. And his groans, those low rumbling sounds of pleasure when John darted his tongue out to taste his pulse point… delicious. 

John let his hands fall away from his face, over his head onto the pillow, and he grinned up at the ceiling. 

It explained a lot—their sudden closeness since the case in Leicester, Sherlock’s impatience to be done with the case that brought them back to London early, the casual touches and deliberate erosion of personal space. John was unconsciously responding to Sherlock in the daylight as he did at night, while Sherlock… 

Sherlock knew precisely what he was doing, both during the day and under the cover of night. 

John threw himself out of bed and thundered down the stairs, a man on a mission. 

Sherlock sat at the kitchen table, staring steadfastly into the eyepiece of his microscope and letting John’s cheerful “good morning” go unacknowledged. John set about preparing two cups of tea as always, but this time when he placed a mug on the table at Sherlock’s side, he braced himself with one hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, then let that hand trace up the side of Sherlock’s neck and into his hair. He pushed his fingers gently over Sherlock’s scalp once, twice, then pulled back to observe the results. 

Sherlock stayed fixed on the microscope, fiddling with the focus… but his cheeks were tinged with a faint flush of color. 

John smiled, took his mug of tea into the living room, and settled in to make his plan. 

Throughout the day, John kept up a steady intake of caffeine and made sure to exert himself as little as possible to conserve energy. He also took every opportunity to make casual contact with Sherlock: a hand at the dip of his waist as he squeezed past him to get to the kettle, a graze of his hand when he asked about lunch, letting their fingers tangle as they passed pens, laptops, mugs. John’s heart pulsed a steady aching throb throughout the whole day, while Sherlock soaked in the contact with that complicated expression, shades of fear, confusion, guilt, embarrassment… desire? 

Dinner was the main event. John quietly announced his intention to cook around six in the evening, and he set about boiling rice and chopping vegetables for a stirfry. Sherlock drifted into the kitchen as he often did when John cooked, passively watching the proceedings without lifting a finger to help. John felt Sherlock’s gaze on his body just as surely as the heat from the boiling rice in front of him.

“Hey, Sherlock?” he asked in a low voice, hesitant to disturb the quiet contentment that had settled over the kitchen. “Think you can reach the wok for me?”

No answer, but Sherlock’s footsteps drew closer until John felt his presence all along his back. Sherlock placed a hand on his shoulder and stretched up onto his toes to reach the wok. And John, feeling his heart pound in the base of his throat, leaned back into the touch ever so slightly, so Sherlock’s body dragged along his on the way back down. They lingered together like that for a long moment, Sherlock’s nose tucked in toward John’s throat, his mouth inches away from skin. John shivered as warm exhalations bloomed along his skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He leaned back again, further, pushing the contact over the edge from proximity to embrace as he leaned his temple against Sherlock’s. 

“Thanks,” he whispered, voice rough and cheeks burning.

Sherlock reached past John to set the wok on the hob, and let his fingers catch on John’s hip on the way back. 

“You’re welcome,” he murmured. 

Then he was gone, and time moved once more. The rice was about to boil over, the veggies were half-chopped, and John’s brain was offline, his breaths shallow. So close. 

Tonight. 

_ Tonight. _

When he finally went up to bed, John employed his final tactic to ensure he would sleep lightly. He laid back, stared at the ceiling, and named every bone in the human body from top to bottom, then moved on to systems of the body, then common drug interactions. It was a pavlovian trigger for his brain that meant time on the wards, on call, in Afghanistan, all the places where sleep had been both necessity and hindrance. Sleep lightly, because a life could depend on it. 

Lives were not at stake in this case, but happiness?

The rewards could be great indeed. 

 

* * *

 

When John awoke to a dark room with clear, sharp edges, he pinched himself just to be sure. 

Definitely not a dream. 

Definitely awake, definitely real, and  _ definitely  _ Sherlock Holmes wiggling his arse back into John as he gently wrestled a portion of the pillow away from him. He was so careful-but-insistent about it, so  _ Sherlock _ , that an aching swell of affection bloomed in his chest, drove him to curl around Sherlock and slide a hand over his bare stomach. Sherlock turned over in his arms, a soft smile already on his lips.

Then their eyes met, and John saw the exact moment Sherlock realized he was bright eyed and alert. 

Sherlock tensed under his hands.

“John…” he breathed, and pulled away, his expression closing down. John tightened his his hold, though, and let his hand run the course from Sherlock’s waist, over his ribs and shoulder, to cup his jaw and run a thumb over the hollow of his cheek. 

“Why?” John asked. 

Sherlock hesitated, guilt written all over his face, so John pressed himself along Sherlock’s entire length, wound himself around his body and slotted their legs together as he had for the past three nights.  _ I want this _ , he thought, willing the words into Sherlock’s skin.  _ Just tell me why.  _

Slowly, Sherlock relaxed into his hold. He brought his arms around John, ducked his nose into the spot just under his ear. 

“The night at the inn,” Sherlock finally said. “I woke up with you, like this, and it was…”

He broke off, took a breath. 

“It was perfect. And you didn’t seem to remember it. The next night, my mind was so loud, and you… you are the  _ only  _ thing, John Watson, that can ever help me feel quiet. And then I just… couldn’t stop.”

John smiled into Sherlock’s neck and traced his mouth over the same path as the previous night, his kisses feather-light on pale, warm skin. 

“I’m glad you’re real,” he whispered into Sherlock’s jaw line. “I hoped you were.”

Sherlock let out a shuddering breath as John brushed his lips over his cheekbone, then nuzzled their noses together until their mouths hovered, almost,  _ almost _ . They stayed like that for a long moment, letting the unbearable tension fill the scant inch between them.

“Can I kiss you, Sherlock?” John asked.

The answer was inevitable and a miracle all at once.

“Yes,” Sherlock sighed, and rose up to seal their mouths together. 

John exhaled hard through his nose as soon as their mouths met, just this side of a moan. That lovely rumbling groan he’d been feeling under his mouth for the past three nights came again, felt on his tongue this time and even more delicious for it. They came together again, and again, every kiss longer, firmer, their arms drawing each other in until there wasn’t an inch to be found between their hot, electrified skin. 

“I thought I was dreaming,” John gasped, shifting his hips to feel Sherlock against him. “You were the best dream I’d ever had, so perfect, so gorgeous,  _ god _ , Sherlock…”

Sherlock rested their foreheads together and let his hand drift down to John’s arse, pulling them tighter together, rolling, grinding, building heat. 

“I didn’t know what to think,” he said in a harsh whisper, every word halfway to a groan. “You wanted it, you obviously wanted me. But you were… it was night… in the dark…”

“I always want you,” John cut in, bringing their mouths together again, hard. “I’ll  _ always _ want you. In here, out there, in front of bloody Scotland Yard if you want. You are  _ everything _ to me.” 

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Sherlock chanted into John’s shoulder as the thread between them pulled taut, pleasure spiking, cresting, and breaking between the hot, damp slide of their bodies together. John arched back to watch as beautiful, gorgeous Sherlock shook, cried out, and came apart beneath him, and he couldn’t help but follow right behind, grinding and circling to draw out the moment. 

They gentled, slowed the rocking of their bodies, and backed off just far enough to exchange several long kisses, pouring their years into each slip of lips and tongue. The buzzing hum of spent arousal wrapped them in a cloak of warmth and closeness and  _ finally _ , a dreamy reality where things wanted became things  _ had _ . They stretched, settled, nuzzled and buried noses in shoulder and hair with heavy-lidded eyes.  

“I love you too, Sherlock,” John whispered, just as they passed into the blurry, half-formed world of sleep.

 

* * *

 

John woke much later than usual, with the full light of morning spilling through the window and onto the bed like rich honey. He blinked once, then again, but his vision refused to clear—because it was blocked by a thicket of dark curls attached to the gently snoring form of Sherlock Holmes: consulting detective, genius, nighttime octopus, and cover hog. John smiled so hard his cheeks hurt, taking in the scent of Sherlock’s hair and the glorious feel of his long limbs wrapped around him. His breaths puffed against John’s neck, long at first, then more shallow as he drifted toward wakefulness. 

“John?” he murmured, burrowing deeper into John’s shoulder.

John swept an arm up Sherlock’s bare back and drew him in close, brushed a kiss to the top of his head. 

“Good morning, love,” he whispered.

Sherlock smiled against his skin, a sensation John thought he could wake up to for the rest of his life. 

“I like that,” Sherlock said, then leaned up to press a sleepy kiss to John’s cheek. John turned into it, let the next kiss fall on his lips (morning breath be damned), and rolled them over so he lay half on top of Sherlock. They exchanged a few more slow, lingering kisses before settling back to the pillows for a silently agreed-upon lie in. 

“Can we share the bed every night?” Sherlock asked, already drifting back to sleep.

John hummed and nudged his nose against Sherlock’s jaw. “Of course.”

They looked at each other over the shared pillow with half-lidded eyes, shared one last kiss, and let themselves fall back into the halfway world of waking dreams together.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr at [librarylock](http://librarylock.tumblr.com) for fic updates and general shenanigans! Thanks for reading. <3


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